


Words in the Time of Science

by newredshoes



Category: The Island (2005)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-03
Updated: 2005-08-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All events have logical extensions, logical arcs and logical ends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words in the Time of Science

After the release, everyone knew, of course. Mere hours after local authorities flew out over that Arizona moonscape to investigate disturbances in the power grid, the world got its first glimpse of the white-suited horde milling around the desert. Within days, identities of sponsors leaked out, as everyone from censors to doctors to janitors to the waitress at the Stim bar came forward to point fingers. A website cataloging the names appeared almost immediately. All word of Charity Phillips, who had disappeared two weeks before in the Canary Islands, and North Korea’s announcement that it had developed a vaccine for porcine flu, was shunted down to the scrollbar at the bottom of the television screen.

Jones belonged to a theoretical physicist at CalTech who wanted to ensure he’d live long enough to solve the work he’d begun on high-energy particles twelve years ago. Gandu came from a pharmaceuticals lobbyist in Washington. The President denied he had one until his double rushed the podium in the Rose Garden, waving his arms and shouting about sexual indiscretions committed while still Senator from Colorado. This, more than the revelation that the clone had been funded by taxpayer dollars, lead to his defeat the following year.

Some took it harder than others. Starkweather shot himself in the head. Martha Chaudhury, the brilliant Shakespearean actor recently returned to the West End after a miraculous recovery from a degenerative ocular condition, gouged her eyes out in her kitchen. Larry King’s clone outed him on his own show as a call-in. The CEO of Sony found God and joined a monastery in Sicily. There were less than three thousand alive, but sometimes a product of the Institute would recognize a Lottery-winning friend in a magazine or on C-SPAN and a new scandal would break loose.

BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Calvin Klein and Vanity Fair formed a well-outfitted coalition to track down Lincoln Six-Echo and Jordan Two-Delta. Their lawyers told the media that as extensions of their clients, the clones fell under contract to their respective firms and owed them work. Private individuals began seeking out their own clones for other reasons: every day, the networks told of another female agnate who refused to give up the child her sponsor had paid for. Within six months, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch helped Ford Eighteen Helo (sponsor: fashion mogul Talia Ford) become the first clone to sue the Merrick Institute. Others soon joined in a class action suite. White rubber bracelets were manufactured and worn the world over in a show of solidarity: a portion of sales went toward legal costs.

After a while, they were no longer called clones or agnates: the correct term became “match.” The world shifted its vocabulary accordingly. An old cult center in Oregon was bought by a grassroots organization and converted into a commune to house those without homes or whose sponsors rejected or tried to harm them. Some managed to integrate themselves into the outside, but many remained, happy to garden and breathe fresh air. The Pacific Ocean was less than an hour away.

Dr. Merrick’s notes became the most sought-after research in the world: into whose hands it fell remained the fodder of tabloids for years to come. So too did the whereabouts of the first two escapees. Albert Laurent never volunteered information, nor was he ever questioned about his experience. Certain allies of his – read: former clients – made sure his name never came up. Television networks sponsored investigators, so long as they were allowed to film their progress to air as specials on nightly news programs. Tom Lincoln’s face became the second-most reported blurry photograph in Scotland after the Loch Ness Monster. Fanatical religious groups seized on Sarah Jordan as a martyr who died because her match shirked its divinely-ordained path. This did not desist even after a critically acclaimed Annie Leibowitz photo-essay of her teenaged son painting over one of their murals in the Bronx.

Like all cataclysms, this one too became an accepted fact of life. Scholarship sprouted in its wake, as did film rights and book contracts. And then one day, a scientist demonstrated a viable source of cold fusion, and the world began to dream of rocket launches and space travel again. The public had speculated for so long on one story, the truth could never live up, and but for the most Talmudic, the world let the characters go. It meant that one man could finally shave off his beard, and his best friend could let her fingers drift over the scar on his temple. This made for a shift in their language: before, their principle verb had been _run._ Now, it would simply be _live._


End file.
